Opportunities — by Jim McFarlane

Yesterday I attended the Rock Hill Intensive Seminar for the first time, a low-key but well-organized event intended for beginning writers, emphasizing literary craft, and featuring local faculty. The absence of hotel food and New York editors and agents was offset by the low price ($15) that included fresh sub sandwiches and too many delicious deserts.

The most important feature was the approximately sixty attendees, many of them not yet SCWW members, eager to learn more about writing and publishing books. These newcomers will be the backbone of SCWW in the next decade.

Each year the SCWW budget includes funds for local chapters to host simple seminars for the general public(such as a free two-hour talk by a local author) in order to encourage interest in writing and to recruit new members. Sadly in recent years, no chapter except Rock Hill has done so.

This fall’s 2013 SCWW conference in Columbia will be an interesting experiment—a centrally located and moderately priced writing event. I hope we attract and excite many neophyte writers. The future of next decade’s SCWW depends upon it. So encourage your newbies to come.

2 Responses

Marilyn Benner

May 20, 2013 at 8:49 pm

It sounds like it was a very successful seminar. I wish I had been able to attend. Congratulations to the organizers. I agree. The newbies are certainly important. So are the seminars. I can’t wait to attend the Columbia conference.